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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23871985">A Rose By Any Other Color</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warlordess/pseuds/Warlordess'>Warlordess</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Complicated Relationships, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Romantic Comedy, Romantic Friendship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:21:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,319</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23871985</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warlordess/pseuds/Warlordess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking a page out of Drew's book, Ash shows up at Cerulean Gym with a certain something... for Misty's Gyarados? Pokeshipping. References to Contestshipping.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruka | May/Shuu | Drew, Kasumi | Misty/Satoshi | Ash Ketchum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. one</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>An old fic I decided to share on multiple platforms. It was originally a one-shot but I ended up adding to it.</p><p>I wanted to say that Drew and May are not actually present in the fic but their relationship and repetitive defining moment of rose giving plays so major a part that I added them to the list of characters. If anyone finds this too inappropriate, let me know and I'll consider removing them from the tags.</p><p>If you end up liking what you read, please leave a comment!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Disclaimer </b>
  <span>- Of </span>
  <em>
    <span>course</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I don’t own anything! I’m just your average shipaholic klepto!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Author </b>
  <span>- Warlordess</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>O</b>
  <span>o</span>
  <b>O</b>
  <span>o</span>
  <b>O</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Title </b>
  <span>- “A Rose By Any Other Color” / one</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>O</b>
  <span>o</span>
  <b>O</b>
  <span>o</span>
  <b>O</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He can’t explain it, but he’s had to pump himself up quite a lot to come this far.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s the first time in quite awhile that he’s had enough free time to visit his friends around the Kanto region. Usually he has just long enough to stop at home for a couple of days, see how his mom is doing, celebrate with her over his latest placement in the League, visit Professor Oak’s lab to check up on his Pokemon, and then research wherever he’ll be wandering off to next.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But the unforeseen free time has given him an opportunity he hadn’t previously had the chance to take advantage of.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Ash? You’re back already, huh? Sorry, I’m still cleaning the…” his redheaded friend, Misty, falters after taking into account his preoccupied hands. “Wait, what’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she asks him, earnestly curious of his intentions.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>His nerves are set afire again, his unexplainable anxiety threatening to take complete hold over him. The whole thing was supposed to be real quick and simple… He couldn’t understand why it seemed so awfully complicated and confusing!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, uh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” he replies innocently, holding up the bouquet he’d bought from a local floral vendor. “Yeah, sorry - I mean, uh, </span>
  <em>
    <span>here</span>
  </em>
  <span> you go!” And he tosses them into her arms, causing her to drop the mop she’d been previously using to clean the arena floor.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I - I’m - I mean, I don’t…” she rambles on, face flushing furiously at this sudden event taking place between them. She’d known for a long time of course that Ash would someday (maybe, hopefully) come around and finally understand how he felt about her but she didn’t notice the time had come to pass already. There had been no indicators since her best friend had first arrived the day before that he’d managed to bridge the gap of his own romantic unintelligence…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Oh, wait! Right! I guess I should explain!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” the redhead says cautiously, “I</span>
  <em>
    <span> guess </span>
  </em>
  <span>you should.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, it’s not a big deal. Those roses are for Gyarados.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I… </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she asks in blasphemy. Surely she’s misheard him!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They’re for Gyarados! I meant to do this awhile ago but I never got the chance! I got the idea from one of May’s… rivals? Yeah, I guess so. One of her rivals. Anyway, do you remember when you came to visit us in Hoenn and you got kidnapped by Colonel Hansen from the Togepi Kingdom?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Yeeeees…</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she enunciates, just as vigilant towards his intentions as before… perhaps even more-so now that she is figuring him out, at the same time feeling her own hopes flutter away into next to nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Well, it’s better to have low expectations when Ash Ketchum is involved.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’d been thinking that, even though we helped you out at first, it was really Gyarados that came along and saved the day in the end, right?” the raven-haired trainer rambles, poising a finger as if stating the utmost truest fact in the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I - I guess… But…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Misty sighs, words strangled into silence as she stares between the bouquet of flush red roses and then back up to her best friend’s face… back down to the roses, and then again up at his awkward smile and shining eyes. He looked so - so </span>
  <em>
    <span>proud </span>
  </em>
  <span>of himself for coming up with this tactic of gratefulness!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry, Ash, but is this some sort of joke?” she braves her own fears enough to ask next.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Joke</span>
  </em>
  <span>? No! Why would you think something like that?!” he asks incredulously, angrily, frustratedly, and she thinks maybe she really </span>
  <em>
    <span>has </span>
  </em>
  <span>read him wrong, even though her </span>
  <em>
    <span>too-good-to-be-true </span>
  </em>
  <span>sense had started to go off.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You’re giving me flowers.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>, I’m giving </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gyarados </span>
  </em>
  <span>flowers.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And not just </span>
  <em>
    <span>any </span>
  </em>
  <span>flowers, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>roses</span>
  </em>
  <span>, of all things!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So what?” the raven-haired trainer yelps in reply to this, and Misty quirks a brow.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Right, right; remember those low expectations…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ash,” she starts again, clearing her throat and venturing on into some unfamiliar territory, “You said that one of May’s… </span>
  <em>
    <span>rivals</span>
  </em>
  <span>… does this? Gives her flowers?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Gives her </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pokemon</span>
  </em>
  <span> flowers,” he corrects her pointedly.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“They do this regularly? Give her - um, her </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pokemon</span>
  </em>
  <span> - flowers?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Drew gives May a rose every time they meet! He always makes sure that she knows they’re for her Beautifly or something though. I don’t know why he thinks he needs to be so specific all the time. As if she doesn’t know!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Drew, huh</span>
  </em>
  <span>…? The redhead wonders to herself distantly. She can’t say that the name meant anything to her, though perhaps May had mentioned him a couple of times before. But then the Cerulean gym trainer regains her senses, rejoins the present, and makes her bed.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“... That’s complete </span>
  <em>
    <span>bull</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“... Huh?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m saying that Drew is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>giving May’s Pokemon any number of red roses!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I - I don’t…” Ash gulps, that odd anxiety flaring back up as his gut starts doing flip-flops around his ribcage. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ash, the red rose stands for respect!” she states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Okay, </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Doesn’t it make sense that’d he’d respect a Pokemon he’s giving a gift to? Even if that Pokemon </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>belong to his rival!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It also stands for </span>
  <em>
    <span>romantic love</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Are you telling me this Drew guy is in love with May’s Beautifly too?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I, wait, h - hold on a second there!” he exclaims in utter terror. This couldn’t be happening to him! He was just an innocent bystander in all of this, wasn’t he?!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ash pauses for an extra moment or two, doing his best to breathe deep and fight off the nerves and fear clawing up the back of his neck. He’d handled at least a dozen legendary Pokemon, life-threatening horrors, evil megalomaniacs hellbent on taking over or destroying just about </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything </span>
  </em>
  <span>in existence… but this was completely different compared to any of that!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“M - Maybe Drew doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>what red roses mean!” he cries, voice cracking and fading to nothing, and he feels his brain literally </span>
  <em>
    <span>begging </span>
  </em>
  <span>for air but he refuses to give it. After all, if he manages to pass out, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>might </span>
  </em>
  <span>be enough of a distraction for Misty to call off this pseudo-interrogation they’ve stumbled into.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m telling you now, Ash, any guy who goes out of his way to carry an endless supply of red roses is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>just handing them out willy-nilly to their rival’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Pokemon</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But - I mean - </span>
  <em>
    <span>I did</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Sure, you’re not my rival, and I guess one round dozen isn’t really an </span>
  <em>
    <span>endless</span>
  </em>
  <span> supply, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t know the meaning behind them and here I am, casually handing them over to you - I  - I mean, to Gyarados! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Through you</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I guess,” the redhead scowls at his apparent need to clear up any possible misunderstanding about his intentions (as if she didn’t already know them at this point), “I should have specified any </span>
  <em>
    <span>normal </span>
  </em>
  <span>guy.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She sighs, taking in his despondent expression. He seems wounded, as if he’s been pushed into a situation he would never have seen coming in a million years, and definitely something he wasn’t ready for… which, she supposed, he clearly wasn’t. She should have known. She really shouldn’t have gotten her hopes up anyway… because now those hopes had come back to kick her in the butt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You should have </span>
  <em>
    <span>realized </span>
  </em>
  <span>what Drew meant by giving May something as beautiful, pricey, and novel as a red rose, Mr. Pokemon Master!” she scoffs, turning up her nose and doing her best to hide her own hurt. “It’s not like he’s running around handing these out to </span>
  <em>
    <span>all </span>
  </em>
  <span>of his rivals, right?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ash still doesn’t say anything, makes no attempt to refute her claims or accusations, and she knows that she’s made the right decision.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Here, dummy,” she says flatly, thrusting the bouquet once and for all back into her best friend’s unprepared arms. “Gyarados doesn’t need your thanks anyway; at least, not like this.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“B - but…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“For goodness sake, Ash, he’s a giant underwater dragon! What’s he going to do with a bunch of roses anyway, right?” she asks him furiously, throwing her arms up in the air in annoyance. Yes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>just </span>
  </em>
  <span>annoyance… and nothing else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“R - right, I guess,” and yet his expression doesn’t change, at least not much, as he shuffles on his feet and awkwardly holds the bouquet in his hand.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Can you stop looking like that, Mr. Pokemon Master? It’s your </span>
  <em>
    <span>own </span>
  </em>
  <span>fault for not reading between the lines! I always knew you were too immature to understand matters of the heart! I’ve been saying it for years, haven’t I?” she asks wryly, though the bittersweet grin on her face seems to be enough to lighten the mood.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Yeah…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But, come to think of it, there’s one thing I still don’t get,” she notes almost absently, drawing a finger to her chin in thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What’s that?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Well, you said this Drew guy gave May’s Pokemon a rose - that means one, </span>
  <em>
    <span>singular</span>
  </em>
  <span> - every time they happened to meet again… So I’ve gotta ask, why’d you go so far as to bring an entire bouquet?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“To be honest, I just thought… Like I said, I’d been meaning to do this for a long time, you know? But still…”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“But still…?” she coaxes him into further explaining.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I had thought… that, even if Gyarados only got one rose… that you’re such a romantic that you’d probably keep the rest anyway.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I wouldn’t steal a gift intended for my Pokemon!” she exclaims furiously at this consideration.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s not what I meant!” he shouts back, now equally as perturbed as her, “I just - just meant that you </span>
  <em>
    <span>could</span>
  </em>
  <span> if you wanted to!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Could </span>
  <em>
    <span>what</span>
  </em>
  <span>?!” she shrieks back, fists clenched in fury.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Keep them! I - In fact, here!” he yells almost viciously, throwing the slightly ruffled but still mostly in tact roses back into her grasp, “It’s not like I have any use for them now, you know?!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I - what is - I can’t believe - you </span>
  <em>
    <span>idiot</span>
  </em>
  <span>--” the redhead stutters in aggravation, gripping the roses tightly in her hands, taking care not to hurt herself.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>For all of her bluster and irritation, she can’t help but think that… just maybe… if this really </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>a part of his original plan… that there might still be hope after all.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Alas, she has no time to articulate such curiosities because Ash immediately turns on his heel and walks back through the archway leading to the waiting room of her gym.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Ah, A - Ash, where are you going?” she calls out, hoping she hasn’t just set fire to a bridge she’d originally thought was more along the lines of a steel fortress.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I’m gonna cool my head! Might as well go pick up Pikachu and my other Pokemon from the PokeCenter anyway!” the raven-haired trainer explains, still sounding a bit upset, though his face might have been a bit flushed for some other reason as well.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ash is halfway to the Cerulean City Pokemon Center when his thoughts u-turn back onto the situation just taking place between him and one of his oldest time friends about ten minutes previous.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He can’t help thinking that there are a few things that make much more sense now that he understands Drew’s rose habit for what it really is… (And trust the ever-romantic Misty to know about it right away.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anyway, he shakes himself out of the apparently </span>
  <em>
    <span>constant </span>
  </em>
  <span>subconscious existence of the redheaded gym trainer in his mind, it was definitely true that Drew never handed out roses to anyone but May. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sure</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he showed them off sometimes, but that wasn’t the same thing by a long shot. And it’s not like Drew didn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>respect </span>
  </em>
  <span>any other coordinators or trainers, right? Maybe the guy’s ego kept him from feeling that way for as many people as he </span>
  <em>
    <span>should </span>
  </em>
  <span>have, but from what Ash could remember, Drew definitely respected Solidad, didn’t he? And she had never mentioned receiving any, er, </span>
  <em>
    <span>gifts</span>
  </em>
  <span> from the guy!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Still, shouldn’t he have been more nervous about those kinds of things? Ash didn’t understand much about it (though he’d never give Misty the satisfaction of knowing that), but it made sense that… that any sort of… intimate… romantic exchange… would leave a guy pretty stressed out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And yet Drew always seemed so cool and suave about the whole thing, as if he didn’t have any cares in the world!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Ash scoffs, one hand scratching furiously at his scalp as he finally approaches the PokeCenter, and he breaks from that irksome line of thought.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s annoying to think about how much he sweated over giving </span>
  <em>
    <span>Gyarados </span>
  </em>
  <span>flowers when Drew apparently has enough cool to survive just about anything. It’s downright </span>
  <em>
    <span>infuriating </span>
  </em>
  <span>to think of all the time he wasted wondering if he had the stones to go through with </span>
  <em>
    <span>buying flowers as a gift for someone else</span>
  </em>
  <span> when Drew was able to carry a lifetime supply in his back pocket or… </span>
  <em>
    <span>wherever</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It’s absolutely </span>
  <em>
    <span>implosive </span>
  </em>
  <span>to acknowledge how much he had to psych himself up just to approach Misty (the surrogate flower acceptor) and explain himself with a straight face and even tone of voice when Drew constantly saunters up to May to do the exact same thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>… Except Drew </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>intended for it to be the exact same thing apparently.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Drew intended to give </span>
  <em>
    <span>May </span>
  </em>
  <span>the flowers and had just used her Pokemon as an excuse.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ash</span>
  </em>
  <span>, had planned to give Gyarados flowers… but had claimed that Misty could keep the leftovers.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Misty, the surrogate, who he’d had to encourage and motivate himself into approaching because he was so nervous about the whole thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Misty, who he’d incidentally given a dozen roses to just twenty minutes ago.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Misty, who’d been so flabbergasted by that token, that’d she’d been too speechless to keep him from leaving her behind while he traveled to the local PokeCenter.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Misty, the only girl he’s ever even </span>
  <em>
    <span>considered </span>
  </em>
  <span>enacting such exchanges of gratefulness with… despite the fact that he’s surely been saved by many a friend’s Pokemon in the past, hasn’t he?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Uh oh. He had a feeling he was in trouble.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. two</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Continuing from part one, Ash takes space after Misty explains the emotional context of the red rose. Unfortunately he's forced to learn more than one new thing today.</p>
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    <p>He’s fuming with bewilderment and annoyance even as he traipses into the Cerulean City Pokemon Center twenty minutes after thrusting a bouquet of roses into his best friend’s unprepared arms.</p>
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    <p>He should be over this by now, he knows he should, and it’s not like he’d been <em>aware </em>of what such gestures were supposed to mean. He’d just been copying what he’d seen some other person do to show gratitude towards someone else(‘s Pokemon)!</p>
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    <p>But no matter how many times he tells himself it had all been innocent and well-intentioned, he knows that there’s some small part of him that’s suddenly expecting change… and that’s the part of him that’s left confused and frustrated; because he <em>shouldn’t </em>want change to take place at all, should he? He shouldn’t even be <em>conscious </em>of what that potential change was!</p>
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  <p>“Can I help you, young man?” asks the Nurse Joy standing a foot or two before him, pausing to greet him in between shuffling her paperwork around the front desk.</p>
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  <p>“Oh, uh, I dropped my Pokemon off here last night. My name’s Ash Ketchum,” he replies distractedly, unable to make eye contact out of sheer embarrassment over a matter that had literally nothing to do with her, he knows and internally admonishing himself over it.</p>
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  <p>“One moment, Mr. Ketchum,” she nods, taking her seat once more and typing his name into the computer database. A few seconds later, she looks up again with a slightly more familiar smile, “Oh, yes, here you are! Your Pokemon have been out back playing with the others who are waiting to get picked up by their trainers! I’ll go get them for you now! Just one minute, alright?”</p>
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  <p>“Yeah, thanks for your help,” he says and watches her go for a second, her partner Chansey left behind to stare him down with a professionally friendly grin.</p>
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  <p>“Chansey <em>chaaanse</em>!” she croons at him with pep and he smiles but turns on his heel to take in the surrounding lobby, glancing at the four or five trainers lounging and watching television or else snacking and waiting for their own Pokemon to finish their check-ups.</p>
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  <p>And then he spots the PCs against the wall to his right, stares at them a few seconds, and begins walking purposefully over to one before he can stop himself.</p>
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  <p>The reason he’d gotten into this very mess was because he hadn’t bothered checking out the detail and facts to avoid it… so it would be better to be absolutely certain, especially <em>now</em>, right?</p>
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  <p>Thinking of Misty back at the gym with her silly dozen of roses wrapped together just so with a length of twine, he takes a seat and types <em>the meaning of roses</em> into the search bar, clicks enter, and waits to see what will come up.</p>
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  <p>Surely there’s nothing left to learn. Misty had told him just thirty minutes ago exactly what roses were supposed to mean. How can the internet’s definition amount to anything different, right?</p>
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  <p>And certainly, the first thing to pop up says <em>‘a red rose is an unmistakable expression of love</em>.’</p>
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  <p>Don’t panic! he shouts internally, loudly clearing his throat and discreetly glancing around the lobby once more while trying to ease the onsetting flush to his neck and cheeks. Misty had said as much before… but he hadn’t known about any of this so he was in the clear, wasn’t he?</p>
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  <p>And, after nodding affirmatively to himself and taking a couple of deep breaths, he urges himself mentally forward and continues to read. Besides, there are plenty of different types of love!</p>
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  <p>‘<em>Red Roses can also be used to convey respect, admiration or devotion.’</em></p>
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  <p>Okay then. <strong>Respect</strong>. <strong>Admiration</strong>. That’s okay to feel, right? He’s been friends with Misty for years! He’s come so far, from originally thinking she was a loudmouthed, scrawny nag to instead thinking she’s a talented, maternal, and even somewhat mature water-type trainer. Heck, he supposes that he could even (easily) carry a bit of <strong>devotion</strong> with him after all the time they’ve known each other! After all, you couldn’t stay such good friends with someone unless you went the distance, and especially when you suddenly only got to see them on rare occasions.</p>
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  <p>The bottom line is that it made sense, and it was all familiar variations of what he’d been told just earlier that same day.</p>
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  <p>‘<em>The number of red roses has special romantic meanings associated with them.‘</em></p>
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  <p>… <em>What?! </em>That can’t be right, can it? Misty hadn’t said anything to him about that, even when he’d admitted to planning on giving her the leftover roses! And to think, he’d only bought a dozen because it was the special recommended to him by the salesgirl (who, he could admit, had been looking a bit starry-eyed after he agreed and walked out with his purchase).</p>
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  <p>‘<em>Twelve red roses is the most popular of all which conveys "Be mine" and "I love you".’</em></p>
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  <p>… Wha…</p>
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  <p>Wha…</p>
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  <p><em>What</em> <em>the heck does--</em></p>
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  <p>“--Mr. Ketchum?” Nurse Joy interrupts from behind him with her usual cheery tone.</p>
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  <p>“Mwah!” he cries in alarm, leaping to his feet and blocking the monitor from her view. “U - uh, I mean, sorry Nurse Joy, I just… needed to check something out… real quick.”</p>
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  <p>“That’s fine! These computers are for trainer use after all! I just wanted to hand you back your Pokemon! Pikachu was very excited when I told him you were here to pick him up! He kept repeating something the whole way back from the playpen! Something along the lines of…” she pauses, trying to remember exactly the pronunciation, and then finishes, “... <em>Pikachupi</em>!”</p>
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  <p>“Pika… chupi?” Ash replies, biting his bottom lip hard after to hold back the smile daring to show itself. He knows what that means. Pikachu had barely gotten to see Misty since they came to town. It only made sense that he’d light up knowing that the next opportunity to do so was swiftly presenting itself.</p>
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  <p>“Yes! Well, anyway, here you go!” And the nurse holds out a tray carrying five Pokeballs for him to take while Pikachu simultaneously leaps from her shoulder to his.</p>
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  <p>“Thanks Nurse Joy, my Pokemon are always in great shape after you help them!” he tells her in gratitude as he straps them all to his belt and wishes her a great rest of her day. The ever-friendly nurse nods and smiles, bowing in thanks, and leaves him to his previous concerns… which were beginning to psychologically cripple him after his latest discovery.</p>
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  <p>“Pikapi!” his best friend chirps from his shoulder before jumping onto the desk and turning his sights on the monitor instead, “Pika kachu, Pikapi?” he asks while gesturing to it.</p>
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  <p>“U - uh, it’s nothing! I was just… looking something up, you know? Always good to learn something new and I - I was… <em>bored</em>,” he winces internally at such a lie, especially considering that’s the last thing he’d been before getting his Pokemon back, but Pikachu knows no difference and just nods his head with a positive chant of his own name.</p>
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  <p>“Anyway, let’s head back to the gym, yeah? You wanted to see Misty, right?” he goes on, hurdling through the next couple of sentences so as not to stumble on <em>that name </em>and cause any serious worry.</p>
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  <p>Because he can’t be worried about this now. He really can’t. He didn’t know. He still hadn’t known even after giving Misty all of those roses that such silly <em>numbers </em>were supposed to mean something. He’s in the clear. He has no reason to panic about this.</p>
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  <p>But that doesn’t keep him from doing so.</p>
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  <p>The fact that his heart has nearly stopped on three separate occasions today and his lungs have just about shriveled up from lack of oxygen (after all, each new discovery about this scenario leaves him in a state of shock and he tends to have trouble breathing when he’s trying to wrap his mind around a relationship-altering piece of information, or two, or <em>three</em>), leaving him staggered but he reminds himself that he can’t show it. Nobody can bear witness.</p>
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  <p>And, again, how was he supposed to have known?</p>
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  <p>‘<em>Red roses can be used to convey respect, admiration or devotion.’</em></p>
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  <p>It’s all well and fine, or else it would be, if that was the end of it.</p>
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  <p>‘<em>The number of red roses has special romantic meanings associated with them.’</em></p>
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  <p>Numbers. It’s all in the numbers… Only it really isn’t. No matter what, Ash knows he’s screwed simply for handing over any amount of <em>red </em>roses because <em>red </em>denotes romantic association.</p>
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  <p>‘<em>Twelve red roses is the most popular of all which conveys "Be mine" and "I love you".’</em></p>
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    <em>Stop! Leave me alone!</em>
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  <p>“Pikapi?”</p>
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  <p>“Uh, sorry buddy, back to the gym, right?” And he only notices after Pikachu’s intervention that he’s stopped walking and is stalled right in the middle of Cerulean City’s main street.</p>
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  <p>He wonders if he still has an acceptable out he can fall back on after this. Misty had all but agreed he could take it before when she’d refused to give Gyarados the flowers, and had even said she wouldn’t keep them for herself… but then he - Ash - had forced them on her and run away.</p>
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  <p>It was all okay and fine and dandy when it was just about respect and gratitude but… but even <em>he </em>had known from the beginning that it might not all be about that. After all, he’d already planned on Misty keeping at least <em>one </em>of the roses. <em>One</em>, which is a lot less incriminating than twelve, now that he knows more about the details of the matter.</p>
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  <p>Still, giving a girl even <em>one </em>flower… it symbolized something, didn’t it?</p>
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  <p>A shuddering breath escapes his throat. No. No, no; he wanted nothing at all to do with this, with <em>anything</em>.</p>
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  <p>He has never been anything even closely resembling a romantic so, no matter what his thought process, no matter his intentions o - or his expectations, surely they’d never amount to anything like that, right? Because he couldn’t have known!</p>
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  <p>But Misty… Misty <em>was </em>a romantic. She had always been one, even when they were ten years old… and, just earlier that day, she’d set him straight on other particulars relating to his folly in giving red roses out of thankfulness. She’d even warned him that they were meant to denote romantic intent.</p>
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  <p>So then why couldn’t she… why hadn’t she said anything about the meaning behind <em>twelve </em>roses to begin with?</p>
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  <p>Was it simply because she didn’t want to make matters worse? For instance, because she understood he hadn’t meant anything romantic? Maybe it was part of the out she’d offered him… But maybe it was also because all twelve roses weren’t meant to go to the same recipient? They’d mostly been for Gyarados after all. Ash had just assumed that Misty would keep one (or more)  for herself. Like she’d said before, what use did a giant water dragon have for a bunch of flowers, right? It was really more the gesture that was supposed to be conveyed anyway…</p>
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  <p>Nevertheless, she could have told him <em>something</em>… that way he could clear up any other misunderstandings, right?</p>
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  <p>Well, one thing’s for certain. Ash Ketchum had only had a few plans when coming to Cerulean City. One had been to, of course, catch up with one of his oldest friends. Two had been to offer Gyarados thanks for being such a great help during the fiasco at Togepi Kingdom all that time ago. And now, three, would be to take back those roses at any cost without anymore romantic inclinations being forced on him!</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sure wouldn't mind some kudos and comments if you enjoyed the read... Chapter three will be posted soon!</p>
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